pff, even if every legal and illegal gun disappeared, cops will still shoot people. Helll there was an incident by the LAPD (surprise surprise) where a half a dozen officers opened fire on a guy with a knife (and he wasnt attacking them, at least according to a video released by a bystander). In fact, a lot of police shootings dont seem to involve guns on the other person.

If there are no guns why would the cops have them? Look at places like the UK; only 5% gun ownership (compared to the US's 88%) and the vast majority are hunting rifles/shotguns with next to no handguns still in public hands, this means our police force doesn't need to carry anything more potent than pepper spray (or rarely, a taser). If police respond to any crime in America there is a pretty big risk that there could be a gun involved, in Britain not so much. Because police are statistically never going to encounter a gun performing their job why would they need to constantly be armed?

Yes gun crime happens here but nowhere near US levels and when it does police forces have special response teams to deal with it. The same could be true in America, if there's no gun crime what reason is there to have a gun on your person at all times while on duty? At the very least you could move to only having guns stored in the cars (as, from a quick google, the NZ police do).

They're linked numbers, if gun ownership goes down then the police can disarm and if it goes up and/or public unrest rises then police will increase their armaments and training.

And remove the right defined as necessary to the security of a free state? A nation, I might add has these USSC rulings under its belt, and ones more recent in the same vein of thought?

"What makes the City's position particularly difficult to understand is that, in conformity to the dictates of the law, Linda did not carry any weapon for self-defense. Thus by a rather bitter irony she was required to rely for protection on the City of NY which now denies all responsibility to her." Riss v. New York, 22 N.Y.2d 579,293 N.Y.S.2d 897, 240 N.E.2d 806 (1958).

"Law enforcement agencies and personnel have no duty to protect individuals from the criminal acts of others; instead their duty is to preserve the peace and arrest law breakers for the protection of the general public."Lynch v. N.C. Dept. of Justice, 376 S.E. 2nd 247 (N.C. App. 1989)

Or equally important, DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago? How about the fact that early gun control was used to entirely to disarm the Black population?

Buy a gun. Train yourself. Keep it close at hand. Nobody is going to save you but yourself.

Firstly I think you missed the joke, you might not have ever seen Blahb's anti-gun rants so it's understandable.

Secondly, I've said before America needs to give it's police force a severe kick in the nuts. The police should be there to protect the citizenry so that they don't feel the need to defend themselves with guns. Doesn't matter if you did a damn thing about gun ownership, the police needs reformed if it's not fit for purpose.

And if you're using the 'guns protect us from dictators' line I would point out that no dictator ever rises in a vacuum, they almost always capitalise on populist movements (Hitler, Lenin, etc.). If you look at how they came to power and maintained it a lot of it was through civilian mobs doing the dirty work in the beginning (attacking rivals, etc.) and then using them as an informal spy network to root out dissidents.

Basically if a dictator did rise to power in America (which is next to impossible but we'll run with it) you would have a lot of people supporting and propping up a bad regime for a long time as long as they get something out of it.

There's also the point that out of the two sides in American politics the one most likely to go for a power grab (in my opinion anyway) is the religious far right who are practically frothing at the mouth to 'take back their country'. If they did try something, the public movements they would stir up will have a lot of those guns in it, you've got an armed mob that's willing to fight for their cause and who already see the government and any that support them as the enemy. So rather than guns defending a free state they end up helping to bring it down.[1]

[1] Again this is wild speculation that goes right off the bullshit scale but out of the 2 impossible options it's more likely than a far-left dictator taking over America

Because it's obviously better if a police officer instead chooses to escalate the situation and shoots a kid. I just find the whole practice distasteful. Does it mean that it doesn't have uses? No. Being able to shoot a non-stereotypical target could be useful.

I would prefer it if you didn't have to shoot at all, but that would be talking about a different country than the U.S.

I just don't think it's the right way to go about a problem like this.

What do I know though? You are right that most of my response is emotional. I'm not being logical at all. I don't think you should dismiss an argument purely because it's due to emotion, but I wouldn't blame you. Community integration and training in talking people would be my preference, but that's probably beyond the means of trainers to implement in a large scale.

That being said...

Mr.BadExample:The people opposed to this are insane. How can anyone expect the police to respond appropriately to incidents like the Mount Carmel Elementary school threat without proper training?

The one where a girl talked about "shooting" people with a hello kitty bubble gun? Are you serious? We're the ones who are insane? You think it would have been better if a cop went and said "she has a gun!" and shot her?

So the government is buying 1.5 or 1.6 billion bullets (until 2015 or something), they're procuring a couple thousand new armored MRAP vehicles (2700) for the streets of America (which were used in Iraq and Afghanistan), they're able to assassinate any American citizen on US soil since the NDAA counts the US as a 'battleground' now. Dissenting citizens, 'unstable' vets, political enemies and so forth will no doubt be labeled 'terrorists' in the near future, making droning them with Hellfire missiles a lot easier for the public to swallow. Washington is trying to jam this drone crap down the people's throats, the economy is on the verge and the rest of the world seems ready to ignite. Don't worry, nothing's going on... these practice targets are legitimate, I definitely believe what the government tells me about them, and they're definitely not strange at all.

beef_razor:So the government is buying 1.5 or 1.6 billion bullets (until 2015 or something), they're procuring a couple thousand new armored MRAP vehicles (2700) for the streets of America (which were used in Iraq and Afghanistan), they're able to assassinate any American citizen on US soil since the NDAA counts the US as a 'battleground' now. Dissenting citizens, 'unstable' vets, political enemies and so forth will no doubt be labeled 'terrorists' in the near future, making droning them with Hellfire missiles a lot easier for the public to swallow. Washington is trying to jam this drone crap down the people's throats, the economy is on the verge and the rest of the world seems ready to ignite. Don't worry, nothing's going on... these practice targets are legitimate, I definitely believe what the government tells me about them, and they're definitely not strange at all.

And drones have replaced the black helicopters.

No offense, but they didn't exactly napalm towns in the US after your little escapade in Vietnam, so I think you're going to be fine. This is what happens when you listen too closely to a Rand Paul speech without the most basic critical thought.

beef_razor:So the government is buying 1.5 or 1.6 billion bullets (until 2015 or something), they're procuring a couple thousand new armored MRAP vehicles (2700) for the streets of America (which were used in Iraq and Afghanistan), they're able to assassinate any American citizen on US soil since the NDAA counts the US as a 'battleground' now. Dissenting citizens, 'unstable' vets, political enemies and so forth will no doubt be labeled 'terrorists' in the near future, making droning them with Hellfire missiles a lot easier for the public to swallow. Washington is trying to jam this drone crap down the people's throats, the economy is on the verge and the rest of the world seems ready to ignite. Don't worry, nothing's going on... these practice targets are legitimate, I definitely believe what the government tells me about them, and they're definitely not strange at all.

And drones have replaced the black helicopters.

No offense, but they didn't exactly napalm towns in the US after your little escapade in Vietnam, so I think you're going to be fine. This is what happens when you listen too closely to a Rand Paul speech without the most basic critical thought.

Not after Vietnam, but our government has gladly bombed us in the past.

The Battle of Blair Mountain, or the second American Civil War, was part of a literal war between coal miners fighting for a living wage and a place to live and their strike breakers culminating the 2,000 vs. 13,000 battle of Blair Mountain where trench systems, machine guns and bombers were used (against the miners) with the bombers being used by the Warren Administration to assist the strike breakers. After 4 days of battle Harding finally sent in federal troops where the miners gave up, unwilling to fight the army. As a side note, it was in this war that the word "redneck" was created, a word still used to refer to rural Americans from Appalachia, to describe the striking miners since they wore red bandanas around their necks to identify themselves.

And to draw one more modern day comparison, the routed miners decided to hide their firearms in the woods to avoid the government taking their guns, which they obviously had a good reason to own.

People on this site are always asking why Americans hate their government so much. The reason for the hatred is because of conflicts like this one and these conflicts have Always been happening.

The misconception people keep having is that the general conflict in America is between the government and it's citizens, when in actuality the history of America has been defined by a tug of war between the power elite and the not-so-powerful, with the government acting as an implement for either side to use to their advantage.And with all the major banks and corporations funding Obama and with Obama giving all the banks and corporations bail-outs and tax breaks, I'd say the power is just as tilted in favor of the elites as they were in the Warren Administration. And you better believe they'd want to take our guns away from us in case push came to shove again.

(in retrospect this comment was ignorant so I edited it out)

If you guys want optimism though, I'd like to use this history lesson to show that things are way better than they were in the past. Conservatives keep wanting to think that things were so much better in the past and that the constitution was respected more in the past, but considering events like Blair Mountain, the Bonus Army March or the Japanese Internment I'd say the constitution was largely disregarded not too long ago, as opposed to today where everyone is educating themselves about their rights and where communication can get the entire population to rally around an important cause. Society would have to degrade a lot before the government can get away with another Blair Mountain without the whole nation getting in an uproar.

On the less emotional side, the training has very little applicable value and can potentially have disastrous consequences. I don't know how many times a police officer would be put into a situation where a kid is pointing a gun at him, but the last thing he should do is shoot the kid first.

Edit: I think my first reply was needlessly aggressive and antagonistic, so allow me to rephrase. This isn't training for how to gun down children when there is time to reason with them. This is training for when there is no time to reason with them and someone is going to pull the trigger, in addition to being able to properly identify that they are an actual threat in the first place(ie realizing it's an actual firearm in their hands). My guess is this is in no small part due to the rash of publicized shootings we've been having. Getting them more confident in their ability to quickly determine the threat presented to them by someone will lead to less unfortunate incidents of misidentification, not trigger-happiness, which is caused by fear, paranoia, and lack of training.

tangoprime:http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billion-rounds-of-ammo-for-homeland-security-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/So the DHS will have enough ammunition for a 20 year sustained military operation, a large portion of which is banned from international warfare, and they'll have MRAP armored vehicles. WHY?

No, they won't. That's 20 years of ammunition expenditure, not ammunition required for a war. You have to stockpile more than you need, so you always have enough at any given palce at any given time.

Secondly, that includes ammunition used for training. Which is sort of vital.

Yes, there are international laws on what munitions you can use (those are a big controversial, and the standard 5.56mm fragments quite a bit, which should get it banned by those rules)m, which don't apply to law enforcement. So?

It trains police forces bad habits that can get innocent people killed.

For example, simulators that taught policemen how to draw faster or pull the trigger on people reaching into their pockets for a gun caused the police to be more likely to shoot people reaching for cell phones.

If there is a terrorist attack on American soil, particularly in a place like Texas or any state which has "shall issue" conceal carry permits (which is actually most of them), a person in the crowd may have a gun and could try to use it to stop the obvious terrorists. Or just pulling on children using squirt guns or toys at the police officer (the orange tip is hard to spot when the "gun" is pointed directly at a person).

It trains police forces bad habits that can get innocent people killed.

For example, simulators that taught policemen how to draw faster or pull the trigger on people reaching into their pockets for a gun caused the police to be more likely to shoot people reaching for cell phones.

If there is a terrorist attack on American soil, particularly in a place like Texas or any state which has "shall issue" conceal carry permits (which is actually most of them), a person in the crowd may have a gun and could try to use it to stop the obvious terrorists. Or just pulling on children using squirt guns or toys at the police officer (the orange tip is hard to spot when the "gun" is pointed directly at a person).

I don't agree that this compares to shooting people reaching into their pockets.

If a police officer sees you pointing what they think is a weapon at them, what are they supposed to do but shoot at them?

Likewise...if the terrorists are obvious, the police should be shooting at them. Of course, the criminals usually aren't going to be obvious, but that's a problem no matter what training the police have. Although, the ones pointing weapons at the police are probably a good place to start.

tangoprime:http://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2013/03/11/1-6-billion-rounds-of-ammo-for-homeland-security-its-time-for-a-national-conversation/So the DHS will have enough ammunition for a 20 year sustained military operation, a large portion of which is banned from international warfare, and they'll have MRAP armored vehicles. WHY?

No, they won't. That's 20 years of ammunition expenditure, not ammunition required for a war. You have to stockpile more than you need, so you always have enough at any given palce at any given time.

Secondly, that includes ammunition used for training. Which is sort of vital.

Yes, there are international laws on what munitions you can use (those are a big controversial, and the standard 5.56mm fragments quite a bit, which should get it banned by those rules)m, which don't apply to law enforcement. So?

So... did you actually read the article? At their (extremely bloated already) rate of ammunition consumption for training, this is enough ammunition for over a century. At the rate of ammunition consumption by the US military engaged in a ground war in Iraq, this is enough ammunition for 20 years. That's only part of the article, that's already known, it's been news for a while now- the more important bit was the whole non-military law enforcement agency aquiring several hundred, or more, MRAPs. Those are the big ass mine/IED resistant armored trucks with gunports.

So, total picture: DHS, a non-military (not subject to UCMJ) law enforcement agency that reports directly to the executive branch is stockpiling enough ammunition to sustain a high-tempo military operation for 20 years (ammunition that is not legally able to be repurposed for use against foreign militaries), is aquiring at least a few hundred roadworthy armored vehicles, and is practicing using targets designed to reduce hesitation when engaging civilians.

Yeah... that's the very kind of paranoia that makes those measures and procurement necessary. In case you missed it, you have had an 800% increase in "patriot groups" in the last four years, many of whom have a paranoid view of government and are stocking assault weapons. It's better to have a government over-prepared to deal with them then one that is under-prepared.

Yeah... that's the very kind of paranoia that makes those measures and procurement necessary. In case you missed it, you have had an 800% increase in "patriot groups" in the last four years, many of whom have a paranoid view of government and are stocking assault weapons. It's better to have a government over-prepared to deal with them then one that is under-prepared.

No, it's not. A government is beholden to it's people, not the other way around- I think that's the key difference between the American and European way of thinking.

Also, it's an article from Forbes. Forbes. Yeah, real conspiracy theory nuts they are, right? Whereas you referenced the Southern Poverty Law Center, who are known for saying one hate group or the other is on the rise (in the last list published, the Constitution Party and the 10th Amendment Center were actually listed as hate groups), because, y'know, that's what makes them valid and gets them donations.

Yeah... that's the very kind of paranoia that makes those measures and procurement necessary. In case you missed it, you have had an 800% increase in "patriot groups" in the last four years, many of whom have a paranoid view of government and are stocking assault weapons. It's better to have a government over-prepared to deal with them then one that is under-prepared.

No, it's not. A government is beholden to it's people, not the other way around- I think that's the key difference between the American and European way of thinking.

And there's only one thing I look to Forbes to: the yearly billionaire rankings.

Whereas you referenced the Southern Poverty Law Center, who are known for saying one hate group or the other is on the rise (in the last list published, the Constitution Party and the 10th Amendment Center were actually listed as hate groups), because, y'know, that's what makes them valid and gets them donations.

You mean the theocratic Constitution Party that wants add "gratefully acknowledges the blessing of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as Creator, Preserver and Ruler of the Universe and of these United States," to your constitution and has been effectively the political front for dozens of Christian extremest groups?

And the Tenth Amendment Center actively promotes an argument for nullification, which has almost always been used in argument against laws to protect racial minorities.

I'm sorry you think a government is some kind of boogeyman that's out to get you. In the meantime, I'd be more worried about thesekindsofattacks.

beef_razor:So the government is buying 1.5 or 1.6 billion bullets (until 2015 or something), they're procuring a couple thousand new armored MRAP vehicles (2700) for the streets of America (which were used in Iraq and Afghanistan), they're able to assassinate any American citizen on US soil since the NDAA counts the US as a 'battleground' now. Dissenting citizens, 'unstable' vets, political enemies and so forth will no doubt be labeled 'terrorists' in the near future, making droning them with Hellfire missiles a lot easier for the public to swallow. Washington is trying to jam this drone crap down the people's throats, the economy is on the verge and the rest of the world seems ready to ignite. Don't worry, nothing's going on... these practice targets are legitimate, I definitely believe what the government tells me about them, and they're definitely not strange at all.

And drones have replaced the black helicopters.

No offense, but they didn't exactly napalm towns in the US after your little escapade in Vietnam, so I think you're going to be fine. This is what happens when you listen too closely to a Rand Paul speech without the most basic critical thought.

Rand Paul and Vietnam? What are you talking about? Regardless, if you don't find these ridiculous purchases a little disconcerting (at the least) then maybe you should pay attention more.

Yeah... that's the very kind of paranoia that makes those measures and procurement necessary. In case you missed it, you have had an 800% increase in "patriot groups" in the last four years, many of whom have a paranoid view of government and are stocking assault weapons. It's better to have a government over-prepared to deal with them then one that is under-prepared.

I'm not afraid of the "patriot groups", maybe some might have a few misguided interpretations of world events, but they're good people and I can't think of any American who's legitimately afraid of them.

What is terrifying though is the idea of a DHS army patrolling the streets of The United States. Imagine fully armed TSA agents given vague constitution breaking authority. They already have the law on their side if they wanted to detain someone pertaining to a "terrorist group" which West Point describes as people who: "espouse strong convictions regarding the federal government, believing it to be corrupt and tyrannical, with a natural tendency to intrude on individuals' civil and constitutional rights. Finally, they support civil activism, individual freedoms, and self government."And the DHS's own explanation of terrorists is just as vague and arbitrary, you only need to look it up.

If a DHS agent got it in his head to confiscate something or detain someone through some contrived interpretation of terrorism, I can easily imagine a normal US citizen, like those on the targets, pulling a gun out on them. I guess they're responses to this are going to be Mexican standoffs.

The Army and the Police should be well armed and respected, but Obama's DHS army has no place in our society.

Yeah... that's the very kind of paranoia that makes those measures and procurement necessary. In case you missed it, you have had an 800% increase in "patriot groups" in the last four years, many of whom have a paranoid view of government and are stocking assault weapons. It's better to have a government over-prepared to deal with them then one that is under-prepared.

I'm not afraid of the "patriot groups", maybe some might have a few misguided interpretations of world events, but they're good people and I can't think of any American who's legitimately afraid of them.

Er, just because you're not afraid of them, doesn't mean that shitloads of other Americans aren't.

Yeah... that's the very kind of paranoia that makes those measures and procurement necessary. In case you missed it, you have had an 800% increase in "patriot groups" in the last four years, many of whom have a paranoid view of government and are stocking assault weapons. It's better to have a government over-prepared to deal with them then one that is under-prepared.

I'm not afraid of the "patriot groups", maybe some might have a few misguided interpretations of world events, but they're good people and I can't think of any American who's legitimately afraid of them.

Er, just because you're not afraid of them, doesn't mean that shitloads of other Americans aren't.

Hammartroll:which is not a problem in the United States, people only want to protect themselves from the government, not take control of it.

What does that mean, though? How do you protect yourself from the government without taking control?

I don't see why they would need to take control. If government agents come into their neck of the woods trying to enforce something unconstitutional then they simply scare them off and return to their business. What they want is to self govern, not to govern other people. A militant group probably wouldn't be able to take control of the government because they would hardly have a monopoly on firepower. They wouldn't last long and no one would obey them (just like the former government). What would most likely happen if a militant group wanted more power in the face of government oppression is take over a town or area and declare it a sort of libertarian-esque sovereign nation state, but many states would probably be willing to do the same thing on their own by succeeding, which a militant group would probably find more convenient to get behind.

Again this is all with the assumption that the government is engaged in some hanus act that would require violent resistance to defend yourself from, such as having an illegal and armed DHS force classifying you as a terrorist and trying to detain you indefinitely under the NDAA's authority. You bring up the obvious fact that the patriot groups are going to kill people with their guns, yes it's for meeting those with equal force who want to infringe on their fundamental rights (again, most likely through the allowance of the NDAA and through the force of the DHS). People who view this as a significant threat form groups and arm themselves for protection; these are the patriot groups you're saying are a threat to the government. They are reacting to the government's threatening maneuvers. It baffles me how people on this site keep saying that the poor government is just trying to defend it's self from these scary militias who want to overrun it, it's just not true.

The only dangerous group I can think of would be some kind of Neo-Nazi group wanting to cause a riot. In this case the police would work just fine with the armaments they already have. Also detaining them ahead of time (before they actually break a law) is a horrible precedent that immediately puts in danger anyone else that could be considered a terrorist under the DHS's vague descriptions of one.

We just have no history in the US of violent movements wanting anything more than the preservation of their rights. There has been no spike in violent extremism to warrant greater surveillance or another police force, in fact, violence has been on the decline. This is just the government up to it's old games of molding into a totalitarian state and the patriot groups are simply a response to that.

btw, the DHS acting in this way may seem impossible, but I think the government would gladly utilize the NDAA, drones vs citizens and anything else in a crisis scenario, like how they did in Katrina: